Eddie Duggan writes: >It might be cosy to hang on to a romantic, reassuring notion of "the >author's intentions", but that would suggest that "the author" is a single >unified subject, capable of "knowing" and "intention". >If, for example, a particular person --- a writer, say --- has particularly >strong fears or feelings about a particular issue --- homosexuality, say --- >that writer might consciously deny those fears/feelings >and even try to keep them from surfacing in his everyday speech and writing >(particularly in a culture that is homphobic). Unconsciously, he may even >try to purge them from his thinking. Such efforts might be less than successful >however. > OK...but this line of reasoning seems to simply replace "intention" with "libido" within the same interpretative scheme; it still hypostatizes an aspect of meaning. There's no denying the erotic and homoerotic aspects of Chandler's prose, but they're not its "foundation." So Marlowe tossing the pearls into the ocean may be homoerotic and masturbatory, but it's also an act of recognition: after covering for Stan Phillips (even to Ybarra, don't forget), he finally acknowledges Stan's deception and implicitly categorizes himself as a "four-flusher," as someone who deceived a woman out of attraction for her. Whatever eros he feels for one of the pair is conditioned not only by the eros he feels for the other, but also by his moral sensibilities. Nor is Marlowe caught between these forces unconsciously; he may not acknowledge them explicitly, but the lengths he goes to shield both Lola's feelings and Stan's reputation indicates some awareness -- at least! -- of the web of conflicting attractions and duties that entangle him. For another example, look at Marlowe's conversation with Roger Wade in _The Long Goodbye_ about sexual conventions and _The Golden Bough_; it's not confused and repressed, but aware and cagey. For me, this indicates that, as a writer, Chandler completely understood the dynamics of human motivations and, as a character, Marlowe is not merely subject to his impulses, but activily creates a world and moral order from them. I remember reading somewhere that a mark of seriousness in artistic treatment of sexual matter was that they were presented in a sublimated, yet aware manner, while junk managed to be both explicit and repressed. As far as I can tell, the tensions and complexities of Chandler's writing land him firmly in the former catagory. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Curtiss Leung (212)267-7722 Voice hleung@prolifics.com (212)608-6753 Fax ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Futility is...hard to deal with" -- Patrick Bateman ----------------------------------------------------------------- - # RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" # to majordomo@icomm.ca